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11 Reasons Selling Sucks!

Written by: Peter Lawless

Article Overview: If you have ever been involved in sales or selling then you may well relate to some of these – and hey please grow the list, I am sure there are a lot more out there that I have not even heard of!

11 Reasons Selling Sucks!

1. Constantly being rejected on the phone especially when the receptionist who is in the middle of doing her nails is pissed off at yet another bloody sales person disturbing her preening routine and who may not actually believe her current line of bullshit about the customer being on a camping holiday with a couple of Eskimos!

2. Winning that big customer sale only to be asked by your boss – “so what are you going to sell today then?”

3. Janet in accounts just told everyone the sperm joke – “what's the difference between a sperm and a sales person – at least a sperm has a one-in-a-million chance of turning into a human being!”

4. Telling your boss that a sale is in the bag and then your customer goes on the missing list not returning phone calls, emails or any attempt at communication besides kidnapping – and then he doesn't have his check book!

5. You have spent months creating the ultimate solution, the customer is delighted and on installation day, Fred from the technical department infects their whole system with a virus, instead of installing the software.

6. All customers and prospects being basically bad, unreliable and malevolent people who use all sorts of clever and devious tricks to avoid speaking to you!

7. Your Mum finds out you're a low down crook of a sales person, she thought you had trained as a lawyer and you could legally cheat, swindle and tell lies.

8. You took a new sales job with great earning potential, sacrificing a great basic salary to find out that the company either doesn't have a product or the product is so crap, you spend your 3 weeks with the company in the “returns” department.

9. No-one and I mean no-one ever, ever returns your phone calls.

10. Everyone thinks that sales people never listen and you just happen to be the one in a hundred who actually does – yes really you do!

11. Not being appreciated, I mean come on, you in sales because you love the glory, you have a big ego and the commission check just isn't big enough yet to buy a Porsche so you can show off!

And if you thought that was all the bad news, well there's more, a couple of guys in Ireland have now launched a sales training course that teaches people how to Stop Selling and what's more, they only accept people on the course if they complete a qualification questionnaire.

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Article Tags: all sorts, boss, bullshit, camping holiday, earning potential, ego, eskimos, joke, lawyer, missing list, nails, one in a hundred, one in a million, prospects, receptionist, salary, sales job, sales person, ultimate solution, virus



Related Forum Posts
Re: 10 Reasons Who Startups Fail & Book Recommendations - Great post,but please edit the headline. I presume it is "10 Reasons Why Startups Fail & Book Recommendation
Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?
Blog pinging - Thanks Martin - yes, I do ping and it has been very effective. I'm currently on the first page of Google for Mastermind Group and on the second page for Selling to Small Business.
Business magazines - Fast Company is pretty good if you're into technology although it can be very on the edge. Entrepreneur has become one giant advertisement and I cancelled my subscription. Selling Power also has some useful content if you're looking at improving your sales skills / presentations.


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